The Russian soprano Elena Stikhina was born in Lesnoy and studied at the Moscow Conservatory, and at the Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Centre. She made her debut at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg as Salome, for which she was awarded the Onegin Prize and the ‘Golden Soffit’ theatre prize. She went on to become a member of the ensemble of the Mariinsky Theatre.
In 2016 Elena Stikhina was awarded the audience and CulturArte prizes in Plácido Domingo’s Operalia competition, which led to numerous international guest engagements in Europe and the USA. These included Tatyana (Eugene Onegin) at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki and at the Paris Opéra, Tosca at the Boston Lyric Opera, Mimì (La bohème) at the Berlin State Opera, Senta (Der fliegende Holländer) at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and the title role of Suor Angelica at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
In 2019 she made her Salzburg Festival debut as Cherubini’s Médée, returning in 2021 for Britten’s War Requiem, in 2022 as Aida and in 2023 as Alice Ford in Falstaff.
Major recent engagements have taken Elena Stikhina to the Vienna State Opera as Santuzza (Cavalleria rusticana), to the Bavarian State Opera and to the Arena di Verona as Aida, to the Metropolitan Opera as Elsa (Lohengrin), to Munich as Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, to La Scala, Milan, and the Zurich Opera House as Salome, and to New York and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as Tosca. She has also sung Lisa (The Queen of Spades) at the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus and Leonora (La forza del destino) in Dresden and Paris.
Her engagements in the 2023/24 season include Cio-Cio-San (Madama Butterfly) at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, in Munich and in Paris, Mimì and Leonora at the Met, Tosca at the Vienna State Opera and Suor Angelica and Giorgetta (Il tabarro) in Vienna and Turin. She also sings Suor Angelica in a new production by Barrie Kosky at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam. She has recently appeared in concert under Gianandrea Noseda at the Kennedy Center in Washington.
